The Red: First Light

Lieutenant James Shelley, who has an uncanny knack for premeditating danger, leads a squad of advanced US Army military tasked with enforcing the peace around a conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The squad members are linked wirelessly 24/7 to themselves and a central intelligence that guides them via drone relay - and unbeknownst to Shelley and his team, they are being recorded for a reality TV show.

just really weird pacing. fun then boring.

i did the whole audiobook. but I wished I hadn't. great action followed by poorly written sex scenes and really long lulls talking about stuff that do..Show More »esn't alter the plot. maybe I just couldn't get into it.

The Trials

Lieutenant James Shelley and his squad of US Army soldiers were on a quest for justice when they carried out the unauthorized mission known as First Light. They returned home to America to face a court-martial, determined to expose the corruption in the chain of command that compelled their actions. But in a country still reeling from the nuclear terrorism of Coma Day, the courtroom is just one battlefield of many.

Bring throughout.

I loved the book and really enjoyed the reading but there are a few occasions when he comes back from a weekend break where his voice is noticably dif..Show More »ferent and the suspension drops a bit. truly terrific though.

Going Dark: The Red Trilogy 3

James Shelley has left his lover, Delphi, and his companion-in-arms, Jayne Vasquez, with a fortune acquired from a fallen oligarch. They believe him to be dead, and he doesn't try to set the record straight. His long-running question has been answered: There are other soldiers like him who have served the purposes of the Red - and he has accepted his place among them.

explosive action sequences, solid world-building..

Going Dark, the finale in Linda Nagata’s terrific military science fiction trilogy, “The Red,” returns Lt. James Shelley to the front lines of a war d..Show More »ominated by artificial intelligence. Presumed dead following his low-Earth orbit exploits at the close of The Trials, Shelley has been serving as a squad member in the secret Existential Threat Management team, a group of soldiers whose deaths have been faked by The Red AI and who carry out missions on the intelligence’s behalf. After a look-and-see mission in the Arctic puts the world’s superpowers on the edge of all-out warfare, the ETM’s cover is blown by a traitor and Shelley and his team find themselves once again serving the US on a series of risky missions related to the competing ideologies of various rogue AI’s that may be off-shoots of The Red.

As exhibited in the previous two novels, Nagata has a strong knack for creating deeply layered plots and dense narratives. The various scenarios she puts Shelley and company through are intriguing and paint a highly interesting view of the world as seen through the eyes and minds of these soldiers, a world that is constantly being manipulated by the overarching, and far-reaching, influences of an unstoppable and uncontrollable artificial intelligence.

In this final chapter, Nagata adds a few new wrinkles and subplots, enough so that I hope and wish for more novels in this series despite it being billed as a trilogy. Over the last two books, we’ve gotten hints of a bigger scope to the world as humanity slowly takes to the stars. Here we get a brief mention of Mars preppers looking to make it off-world, but the narrative remains strictly Earthbound. Frankly, I’d love to see Nagata take on outer space at some point. Going Dark, though, does serve a fitting finale to the story of James Shelley, even if a lot of the larger concepts surrounding him go unresolved. With The Red, Nagata has created an overwhelming game-changer, an uncontainable genie that is not easily put back in the bottle. As with the prior installments, though, the focus is strictly on the human element and the ways in which characters respond to the evolving world around them. I have to applaud Nagata for still finding new aspects of Shelley’s character to play with, and for surrounding him with a supporting cast, many of them new faces, who are special in their own right.

Regarding the narration, Kevin T. Collins has become the voice of the series, and there’s a certain comfort factor in his return here. The speech and timbre are familiar, and listening to him once again embody James Shelley is a welcoming, easy listen. The production values continue to be high, and the narration proceeds without a hitch for its 16 1/2 hours run-time.

Packed with a number of explosive action sequences, solid world-building, and characters that are worth the time investment, Going Dark is a strong finish to Nagata’s “The Red” series. Taken a whole, this series has quickly become a personal favorite. If you’ve read or listened to the prior installments, finishing it up with this finale is a no-brainer.